Workshop: Promoting Engineering to K12 students through Spatially Challenging Making and Outreach Activities

G. Duffy, M. Westerhof, D. Keogh, C. O'Kane

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Outreach activities are an important and valuable approach to promoting engineering education and careers to young people. They provide an excellent way to show that engineering can be fun, challenging and rewarding. With some careful thinking, they can also be used to promote and develop spatial ability, a cognitive ability that is very important to engineering. The purpose of this workshop is to demonstrate examples of outreach activities that are the result of such careful thinking. Those who attend this workshop will be able to: 1. Explain why and how spatial ability is so important to success in engineering education 2. Summarise findings from research on gender and SES differences in spatial ability 3. List some key features of hands-on outreach activities that require spatial thinking 4. Find and explain a lesson plan or set of instructions to run a spatial outreach activity 5. Suggest ideas for how they could adopt spatial thinking into their outreach activities.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSEFI 2023 - 51st Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education
Subtitle of host publicationEngineering Education for Sustainability, Proceedings
EditorsGer Reilly, Mike Murphy, Balazs Vince Nagy, Hannu-Matti Jarvinen
PublisherEuropean Society for Engineering Education (SEFI)
Pages3138-3143
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9782873520267
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
Event51st Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, SEFI 2023 - Dublin, Ireland
Duration: 11 Sep 202314 Sep 2023

Publication series

NameSEFI 2023 - 51st Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education: Engineering Education for Sustainability, Proceedings

Conference

Conference51st Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, SEFI 2023
Country/TerritoryIreland
CityDublin
Period11/09/2314/09/23

Keywords

  • Design-based learning
  • K12 Engineering
  • Maker education
  • STEM outreach
  • Spatial ability

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